Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Bak Bak is a voice keyboard and voice memory app for iPhone, made by Curovana Technologies Private Limited (“Curovana”, “we”, “us”), a company registered in India. Bak Bak was previously called Bolo.

This policy explains what data the Bak Bak app and the Bak Bak keyboard handle, where it goes, and what control you have. It applies to the app, the keyboard, its widgets and controls, and this website.

2. Your account

You sign in to Bak Bak through Clerk, our sign-in provider, using Sign in with Apple or your email address. When you sign in, we receive:

• your email address, or your Apple private relay address if you chose Hide My Email; and
• a user ID that identifies your account.

Clerk stores your account so you can sign in again. To keep sign-in secure, Clerk may also process technical details such as your IP address and device type, as described in Clerk’s privacy policy.

We use your email and user ID to run your account and your plan, to prevent abuse, and to reply if you contact us.

3. Speech to text

When you dictate in the Bak Bak keyboard or in the app:

• The audio is sent over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection to Bak Bak’s server, which runs on Microsoft Azure in India.
• Our server forwards it to Sarvam AI, which turns it into text and sends the text back to your iPhone.
• Our server does not store your audio or transcripts, and does not log their content.
• Under Sarvam AI’s terms, Sarvam does not keep the audio or text for us.

The microphone. iOS doesn’t let keyboards use the microphone, so the Bak Bak app listens on the keyboard’s behalf. When you start a mic session, the app keeps the microphone ready in the background so the keyboard can work inside other apps, and iOS shows an orange dot while it’s on. While the mic is ready but you aren’t dictating, Bak Bak doesn’t save or send any audio. You can end the session at any time in the app.

4. AI features

Summaries, to-dos, the diary, Ask, rewrite and “Clean up text” use AI. When you use them, the text involved (a note, the day’s moments, your question with the relevant notes, or the text you’re rewriting) goes through our server to Anthropic’s Claude, and the result comes back to your iPhone.

• Our server doesn’t store this text or log its content.
• Under Anthropic’s commercial terms, Anthropic doesn’t use it to train its models. Anthropic may keep it for a limited time for safety and legal reasons.
• If Claude is unavailable, Sarvam AI handles the request the same way, without storing it for us.
• Photos are never sent: only the short description made on your iPhone.

Smart mode (on by default, Me › Smart mode) makes these features understand your world. With each request, the app also sends a short profile of you that Bak Bak has learned (for example your work and how you write), the names, roles and short summaries of people you mention, your project names, open to-dos and the titles of recent notes. With Smart mode off, only the text of the request itself is sent.

What Bak Bak learns. From your notes it builds, on your iPhone, a list of people, facts worth remembering, projects and a short profile of you. Once a day it sends this list to Claude to tidy it (merge duplicates, refresh summaries, archive quiet projects). You can see and delete what it knows about you in Me.

Briefings. For the morning briefing and weekly review, the app sends your open to-dos, recent note titles and summaries, and your people and projects list.

If we later run some of these features on your iPhone or with Apple Private Cloud Compute, we’ll update this policy first.

5. What our server stores

To run plans and prevent abuse, our server stores the following, linked to your user ID:

• minutes used each month;
• your free trial dates;
• daily request counts; and
• your subscription status: the product, its expiry date and the Apple transaction ID.

That’s all. Our server doesn’t store your audio, transcripts, notes or anything else you create.

Like most online services, our hosting may keep short-lived technical logs (such as IP address, time and error codes) to keep the service secure and working. These logs don’t contain your audio or text.

6. Purchases

Bak Bak Pro is sold and billed by Apple through your Apple ID. We never see your card or other payment details. Apple tells us about your subscription (product, expiry and transaction ID) so we can unlock Pro. Apple’s privacy policy covers what Apple collects when you pay.

7. Data on your iPhone

Your notes, recordings, photos, transcripts, to-dos, projects, people, memories, profile, diary pages and keyboard history are stored only on your iPhone, and in your iPhone backups if you use iCloud Backup or back up to a computer. We don’t store them on our servers.

What leaves your iPhone is the audio and text sent for speech to text and the AI features described above. Our server passes it through without storing it.

8. The Bak Bak keyboard

• Typing works without Full Access.
• With Full Access turned on, the keyboard can also use the mic, AI suggestions, AI rewrite, Save and paste. Text leaves your iPhone only for those features, as described here and above.
• AI suggestions (on by default, Me › AI suggestions; needs Full Access). When you pause after a word, the text just before your cursor (up to about 600 characters) and a few facts from your profile are sent to Claude to suggest the next few words. Nothing is typed unless you tap a suggestion. This never happens in password, email, web address, number, phone, one-time code or card fields.
• Password fields. Bak Bak never sees what you type in password fields. iOS doesn’t allow third-party keyboards there and switches to the system keyboard.
• Typing memory is off by default. If you turn it on, messages you type with the Bak Bak keyboard are kept as private notes on your iPhone.
• Finding to-dos in keyboard history. With Smart mode on, your keyboard dictations (and, if Typing memory is on, the messages you type) are sent to Claude in batches when you open the app, to find to-dos, appointments and facts worth remembering. Turn off Smart mode to stop this.
• Suggestions. Words the keyboard learns to improve suggestions stay on your iPhone.

9. Photos

When you add a photo, Bak Bak describes it on your iPhone, using on-device labelling and text recognition. Your images are never uploaded. The resulting description may be used by AI features, as described in section 4.

10. Notifications

Reminders, the nightly diary nudge and optional moment pings are local notifications, scheduled on your iPhone. We don’t send push notifications from our server.

11. What we don’t do

• No ads.
• No tracking you across apps or websites.
• No selling your data.
• No third-party analytics or advertising tools in the app or on this website. This website runs no scripts and uses no tracking cookies.

Apple may share crash reports and app usage statistics with us if you have chosen to share them with app developers in your iPhone settings, or send feedback through TestFlight. These are covered by Apple’s privacy policy, and we use them only to fix and improve Bak Bak.

12. Who processes data for us

• Clerk: sign-in and accounts. Your email (or Apple relay address), user ID and sign-in technical data. Clerk privacy policy.
• Microsoft Azure (India region): hosts our server. Passes audio and text through without storing them, and holds your usage records. Microsoft privacy statement.
• Sarvam AI (India): speech to text, and AI text features only if Claude is unavailable. Receives audio and text, and does not keep them for us. Sarvam AI privacy policy.
• Anthropic (United States): AI text features through Claude. Receives the text of the request; doesn’t use it to train models under its commercial terms. Anthropic privacy policy.
• Apple: purchases (and TestFlight, if you use the beta). Apple privacy policy.

Each provider processes data under its own terms. Some of them, such as Clerk, Anthropic and Apple, may process data outside India, including in the United States.

13. Deleting your data

• Delete your account in the app: Me › Delete account. This immediately deletes your Clerk account and your usage records on our server, and wipes Bak Bak’s data on your iPhone.
• Uninstalling Bak Bak removes its data from your iPhone. Copies in your own device backups remain until those backups are deleted or replaced.
• Subscriptions are not cancelled when you delete your account or the app. Cancel in your Apple ID settings: Settings › [your name] › Subscriptions.

14. How long we keep data

• Your account (at Clerk) and usage records (on our server): for as long as your account exists. They are deleted when you delete your account.
• Audio and transcripts: not stored by our server.
• Technical logs, if any: for a short time only.

We keep something longer only if the law requires it. Apple keeps its own purchase records under its policies.

15. Security

Data in transit is encrypted with HTTPS, and we keep as little as we can on our server. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your personal data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

16. Your rights

Depending on where you live, including under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you can ask us to access, correct or erase your personal data, withdraw your consent, nominate someone to act for you, and raise a grievance. Most of your data lives only on your iPhone, under your control. For anything we hold, email support@curovana.com and we will respond within the time the law requires. You may also complain to the Data Protection Board of India or your local data protection authority.

17. Children

Bak Bak is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal data. If you believe a child has given us personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

18. Changes to this policy

If we change how Bak Bak handles your data, we will update this page and its effective date before the change takes effect. For significant changes, we will also let you know in the app.

19. Contact

Questions, requests or grievances about privacy: